Re: Please follow site guidelines

Most everyone (if not everyone?) as an infant and needy child "attaches" to their caregiver(s) and strongly before you are old enough to mentally process it. When your adult mind is in the state of a 2, 3, 4...year old, your ego removed and unconsciousness exposed if you allow youself to let this happen, you are going to attach to the person encouraging it; the person you are feeling transference with, the person in the room you are relecting your transference off while they are in blank state. If an anylist has the ability to help regress you to that state, and mine did easily, he is so quick with the probing an responses in assessing my reactions, that I am not allowed time to "think" thus process through my ego....and if you are receptive to that person, you will become immediately attached. It's attachment based theory and is used by more classic analysts and who else i don't know.

Not that I know much about it, I really don't, only have read some things. But when many of you educated in psychology discuss my situation, and though I really appreciate it, it sounds like you are not that familiar with the more classical psychoanalytic techniques at all. It sounds like the things you are saying having nothing to do with the psychonalyst perspective where transference is used as one of the main tools, and that my intense transference and attachment would be useful and encouraged and used as a main tool by post-freudian, but freudian based theorists, classic analysts. how I reacted makes me an ideal candidate for this type of therapy - What can be a barrier to some analysts, as I've read, is when the person resists the transference and attachment by strong resistance or not being able to trust, not breaking down defense mechnaisms - though that is worked with to, turned around to facilitate the therapy, though frustrating to these types of analysts. i think a skilled analyst can manipulate this though becaue I can now see how it's done.

I love this bottom up type of thing; I believe in a lot of that old theory, how our unconciousness shapes our lives and that our relaations with our parents during our most vulnerable years shapes us today. I used to read about Freud with interest when I was a kid, but don't remember much , but do remember some of it abstractly, and want to get back into it. I'm interested in all the sexual stuff too, theories that are 'controversial' or ignored in the mental health professions and have no issues discussing such things with an analyst-male or female-who I trust. It's natural and if you believe in some of those theories, it can be enlightening. I had already started to gain some insights into these sexual feelings over the past 2 days, but didn't have a chance to talk to him about it, with ending our relationship last session and all.

Since I don't go around 'attaching' to strangers outside of being in a trance, the altered state of consciousness to that of a 2-4 year old with a very skilled, experienced psychoanalyst, the only way I can explain it in uneducated terms, is that he had my unconsciousness totally exposed. I can now picture the layers of my ego being peeled away as he talked to me and probed me, it was a fuzzy grey layer - i can see it being removed before my unconsciounness was totally exposed. It was the strangest, most fascinating feeling, that's what happend right before I attached to him. I regressed to a 2 years old, maybe 4 at the most. I was in the mindset of an infant or small child, I even remember making weird facial movements, and not being able to process information/cognition like a baby or small child--only feel--which he was observing.

The feeling is so powerful and I don't really think he expected me have that reaction, take to him so soon, to put down all my guard, to trust him, and have that intense reaction since I hardly knew him and have trust issues which I told him.

I, too, read about the ability of analysts to do this to people. It's kind of scary-very powerful, but I thought it was fascinating. If you overwhelming trust the therapist like I did, so that your defenses are easily dismantled, adn the analyist is skilled and experienced, i think it's inevitable.

The inferrence of 'certain diagnoses" by anyone, whatever they may be, does not bother me the least bit, and this psychiatrist said i have done remarkably well and have healthy coping skills, which I've already recognized and gained insights about- from 45 mintues with him.

I think the misunderstandings I've read here are good examples of how few mental health people know anything about more classic oriented psychoanalysis (and either do I but I know it is not waht is spoken of here. Though Amelia, you say you've been w/a classic analyst? When I get finished with the semester, I'm going to buy a book about it. I can't wait. I am so into it. I've always had this curiousity, but now revived. Maybe the intellectual curiousity allows me to be more into it and feel more positive about it than some.

I appreciate everyone's input, and Amelia for mentioned CBT for PTSD, and Birdsong's analysis, and the support and empathy from everyone, along with the input from those who see my experience(s) as a red flag. I am 100% comfortable with this type of therapy-it is just what I need. I mean to gain the insight of phsycial manifestations of your anxiety, the place in your body it is hiding and trying to emerge from, and recognize as that anxiety caused by repressing and ignoring emotions for years is phsyically transforming to grief and than just poof - disappear- is amazing. I also see clearly how past transference on my part and the countertransference of very narcissistic men has led to relationships with them. I have had many authoritiy figures such as many bosses, and/or narcissitic men pursue me regularly and have been repeatedly told how I make them feel young, alive, and like a teenager again. I now believe that has all come from my transference. Not nearly as powerful as I experienced iwth this doctor, but I can see so clearly how this transference that stems from childhood issues has been the basis of all dysfunctional relationships and attractions I have had. See it clearly and remarkably--yet, only from this short encounter. I can only imagine the other insights I will gain. There are more too, but I have already written too much.

I called the female analyst-she works in his building and knows my doctor from the local psychoanalyst association. She's only been doing it for 6 years, but has been a therapist for 30. I'm thankful to find out she's experienced. I don't expect anyone to be as skilled as this guy was, but spoke to her and set up an appt. for Monday. I had a good feeling just from our brief conversation, in that our personalities were compatible. He spoke very highly of her too, so since I trust him, I'm definitely going to take his recommendations. I'm also hoping he can still be my Pdoc-do my pharmaceutical management and maybe just talke sometimes, but didn't ask him yet. Maybe the 3 of us could also work together sometimes, considering my attachment to him and all the childhood dynamics with both mother and father and since he is the one who oversees her cases, from what it sounded like.

If anyone is listening-thank you. I am trying to put aside the grief I'm feeling for a while since its so overwhelming. I can't obsess about it, so talking about the intellectual aspects of it may help for the time being. I am going to try my best to save up all the emotion for Monday when I meet with her.

But going back to original question in mind-analysts ability to induce this attachment state-yes, I've read that too. I don't think he was trying to be manipulative with me, just trying to get to my inner core as a source of discovery for my underlying issues so that he could make a determinition of my diagnosis and course of treatment necessary; and especially my ability to be a candidate for psychoanalysis, which I definitely am. It just was unusually intense and not expected so soon. The emergency of strong dynamics between him and I were not totally planned by him this soon as he was only gathering my history, I believe, but are important now that they have been discovered and will help me realize my potential.

I can understand why some may be triggered by this type of therpy and why some are against it. It is extremely powerful and can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Have a T that fits me means eveything to me, and could have made a difference with others, I believe, if they had the right analyst. I can see how some f'ed up people would enter this field, and the possibility they might is scary; but it is very regulated as I had mentioned before. Psychoanalysis technqiues can be used to control or manipulate people, to put it harshly. Doesn't matter who you are, you could be the strongest person in the world and still be affected w/a skilled and experienced analyst.

So I do want to clarify that-no experienced analysist would turn me away based on this "strong attachment" and transference; it is quite the oppositite. Reason to be turned away though, is when an analyst is not skilled or experienced with dealing with countertransference. If they can't manage it enough to use it as a tool, if it gets in the way to cloud their work and judgment, then it would be a problem. But my reaction would be most welcome by any good psychoanalyst. I think some of what was said here led to the fears I originally had of him telling me he wouldn't want to see me anymore if I told him of the attachment--that was not the case at all. It was my fear of parental rejection and childhood issues, along with the reoroginazation of the office where everything was "off", and of course all stemming from the attchment that led to extreme anxiety when I entered his office yesterday. The first thing he asked me was why I was so anxious, what thoughts I had that led me to feel that way. I immediately told him I was scared he was going to tell me he didn't want to see me anymore-and he acted a odd through the rest of the session, not doing the blank state, knowing he had planned to tell me he was referring me to someone else. But anyone who said my intense attachment was an issue inovlved in his decision-was way off. When he said it was highly unusual to happen so soon and so intensely, I realize he didn't have a plan for me in dealing with that all.